In the ASO Monthly-series by ASO Consultancy Phiture, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tools updates.
NB: Phiture is hiring for a key role to lead our evergrowing ASO team. You’ll be responsible for leading and overseeing the success of our App Store Optimization service team and help Phiture to lead the way in mobile growth. Read more about the role here
This update was written by Adzsa Hatano, ASO Specialist at Phiture.
9 December — Acquisition report bug on the Google Play Console
Some members of the ASO Stack Slack community noticed problems in the acquisition report from the Google Play Console, which was not showing the conversion rate for retention. As of now, it seems to have all been fixed.
Source: ASO Stack Slack
9 December — Store listing bug on the App Store
David Barnard noticed that out-of-date screenshots, as well as ratings, were shown for some apps in the App Store. There is no official statement from Apple, but it is presumably another iOS13 bug.
Source: David Barnard
10 December — Search bugs on the Play Store
It has been a good few months since new apps stopped appearing in the Play Store search. There has been speculation that Google is hiding certain apps for reasons unknown to the public. Algorithmic changes are also failing to index the metadata for these apps as they do appear with some search tricks, such as including non-text symbols, according to C. Scott Brown.
As Google remains silent, app publishers who have been experiencing this issue struggle to generate organic installs. Ryne Hager from Android Police expects the fix to roll out soon since the latest report from Google, “How Google Play Works: 2019 Google Play Public Policy Report”, highlights the discoverability of apps via search on the Play Store as well as their promises to improve communication.
14 December — Non-text symbols are indexed in Search on the App Store
Vadim Lysenko flagged that non-text symbols, such as “-” and “:” have started to be indexed on the App Store. They used to be counted as a space, hence search results for “photo editor” and “photo editor:”, for instance, were the same. By the symbols being indexed, the results are now different.
Source: Vadim Lysenko
20 December — Apple Search Ads rotation
At the end of November, Sylvain Gauchet flagged that Apple Search Ads change after scrolling away from an ad and then back up to it with iOS 13.3 in the US store. Additional impressions were created as a result of this.
After reverting to the non-rotation mode for a few weeks, it was observed again and in other locales as well. There were two different rotation patterns noted:
1) When the user changes tabs and then goes back to the search tab
2) When the user checks organic results and then goes back to the ad
The number of rotations varies, but it seems to be capped at a maximum of 4 rotations.
Left: Pattern 1, Right: Pattern 2
Upcoming events in January 2020
20–21 in London: PocketGamer Connects London
23–24 in Amsterdam: White Nights Amsterdam 2020
28–29 in Tokyo: Marketing Technology Fair
29 in New York: AGS Mastermind Roundtables NYC
and more!
